by Dan Scottow
If the door hadn’t been open, you would be forgiven for thinking things were fine. She stepped inside, calling out again, more confident this time. Her footsteps sounded like hammer blows as she made her way towards the living room. She reached the corner and gasped, as she was met with a substantial amount of blood.
Margot’s phone lay on the wooden boards beside the puddle. A mass of dark crimson was pooled on the ground inside the doorway and spattered across the white furniture and walls.
Arterial spray? Beth tried not to think about that. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the room. Took it all in. There were signs of a struggle. Shattered glass strewn across the floor. Messy red handprints smeared the wallpaper and sofa. Cushions lay scattered on the floor.
Beth began to hyperventilate.
Feeling dizzy, she steadied herself against the wall, putting her hand in a sticky wet patch. She recoiled in horror, wiping it on her leg, leaving pink streaks on her jeans. She rushed around the flat, calling for Daisy. The property was deserted. Beth collapsed onto the settee in tears, holding her head. As she sat sobbing, her phone buzzed to life. A message.
If you want to see your family again come and find them. I’ll be waiting where it all began. Come alone. No police or they die.
Beth read it again, her heart pounding. Her mouth was dry, hands shaking. She took a few deep breaths, trying to regain her composure. But her mind kept racing through what might have happened in this room. What had her children witnessed? Whose blood was decorating the walls? She thought of Charlie. Had he been taken by surprise, caught off guard? Had he put up a fight?
It certainly looked like it. Charlie was a big man. It wouldn’t have been easy to overpower him. She pictured Mikey. He was toned, but slim. And much shorter than her husband. How had he managed to get the upper hand?
Beth felt another wave of nausea flow up from the pit of her stomach. She ran her hands through her hair, breathing out slowly. With a calm head, she reread the text message.
I’ll be waiting where it all began.
Until recently, when she visited Wendy Noakes, Beth had not returned to Birmingham since the day she left. When she was seven. Her family had been driven from their home. They didn’t even have time to gather their belongings.
When the newspaper ran her name and picture, her parents knew. They had to leave, and fast. They had never looked back. Beth had no desire to return.
The scene of the crime, as it were. It held nothing but terrible memories for her. It was all part of a life she had tried so hard to forget. And from the outside, it appeared that she had succeeded. But the horrors that had unfolded in her childhood had never left her. They lived with her every day. Every night when she closed her eyes. They hounded her while awake and haunted her dreams.
She had vowed she would never go back. No good could possibly come from it. And yet here she found herself having to return for the second time in the space of a week. It had taken every bit of strength Beth could muster to do it once. To look Wendy Noakes in the eye and confront her.
She didn’t want to, but she had no choice. Her family’s lives were at risk. Assuming it wasn’t a trick. They could already be dead.
Beth shook the thought from her head. She couldn’t allow herself to entertain that idea.
Worse than having to return to Birmingham. Worse than having to see Wendy Noakes. Beth had to go there. To the hotel.
And for the first time in years, Beth was Kitty Briscoe again.
Scared, pathetic Kitty Briscoe. Who did a bad thing and got caught.
When Beth had rewritten her past, her identity, she had vowed she would never allow herself to feel like this again. She had found safety with Charlie. And she’d stopped running; created a new family, who brought her comfort.
She made a life for herself that she knew she didn’t deserve.
But it felt good. And as she pictured them there, in that place of horror and wicked secrets, she imagined Daisy, confused, terrified. She saw Charlie, hurt and bleeding. She thought of Peter, wondered if he was afraid, or if he was putting up a fight. Her poor, beautiful family.
They needed her, and she had to save them.
She didn’t deserve them, but she had them none the less, and she had to do what she could to help them. A sudden strength and resolution surged up from within her. She stood from the sofa and walked out of the apartment, pulling the door closed behind her. Climbing into her car, she held down a rush of nausea. She was returning to Birmingham, hopefully for the last time.
Whatever awaited her in that damp, dark hotel, whether she survived it or not, there was one thing she was sure of. Nothing would ever be the same for her… for any of them again.
55
Charlie opened his eyes slowly. His head throbbed; he’d been hit from behind with something heavy. A great deal of blood was still flowing from what he guessed was a fairly deep wound on his scalp. He inhaled deeply; his nostrils filled with a musty smell. The air felt cool, damp.
His vision adjusted to the darkness as he tried to make sense of what had happened. His arms were tied behind his back painfully, tethering him to a pillar as he lay on the dirty ground. The space was vast, but about twenty feet above his head was a small section of ceiling, like a mezzanine, or a large balcony jutting out from the wall. It looked unstable. Dangerous. Parts of it had caved, so you could see right up to the roof.
Somewhere off in the darkness he could hear Daisy. She was sobbing.
‘Daisy!’ he shouted as loud as he could.
‘Daddy! Where are you?’ Her voice was quiet, not in the same room… if room was the correct word. Most of the walls were crumbling. Shafts of dim evening light seeped in through cracks and holes in the roof, but not enough to illuminate the space. They threw dappled shadows onto small areas, falling across piles of bricks and twisted, rusty metal girders.
‘I’m right here, honey. Are you okay?’
‘I’m scared, Daddy. It’s dark!’
‘I know, sweetheart. Can you see Peter?’
There was a pause.
‘Yes. He’s here… but he’s sleeping.’
Charlie’s heart pounded. He hoped Peter was only asleep.
‘Okay love, try to stay calm. I’m going to get us out of here, I promise.’
In reality, Charlie had no idea how he would escape this situation. He scanned the room.
‘Daisy, can you move? Can you run away?’
‘No, Daddy. I can’t. We’re both stuck.’
Charlie pictured his children, alone in the dark. Terrified.
A surge of adrenaline rushed through him, and he let out a loud cry, wriggling, trying to break free from his bonds. Pain coursed through his body. Although his head had the most obvious injury, the rest of him had taken quite a pummelling too. He twisted from side to side. As he did so, dust and debris crumbled down onto his face from high above him. The pillar wobbled precariously.
Perhaps he would be able to dislodge the structure and escape. He sat up, bracing his back against the bricks. Digging his heels into the dirt, he pushed backwards. More crap fell down from above.
Without warning, a large piece of masonry came loose, falling down and narrowly missing Charlie’s head.
It crashed to the ground with a loud thud beside him, as he was showered with dust and bits of concrete. Caution kicked in. If this went wrong, the entire thing looked like it could come down on top of him. One false move and it could be game over. Not worth the risk.
He would need to keep very still. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had ever felt as useless… as helpless.
Something wet and furry scurried over his arm. He writhed around, bringing more debris down on him.
A rat emerged in front of his face. Its nose wiggled as it sniffed the air. It seemed to stare straight at Charlie, fearless. In the surrounding darkness, Charlie sensed more movement.
The rodent was not alone.
Charlie screwed his eyes shut and hoped with
all he could muster that this was not the last place he and his children would ever see.
56
It was dark by the time Beth arrived in Birmingham. She had stopped at a hardware shop so she could arm herself. After assessing the rows of tools, she had chosen a heavy claw hammer. It was easy enough to carry, swing, and could deliver an impressive amount of damage to a human skull. She had also picked up a small silver Stanley knife as a backup. You could never be too sure when dealing with a psychopath.
She didn’t intend on letting Michael Noakes leave Birmingham alive. She couldn’t risk a repeat of this. Whether her family made it through this and stayed together or not, she wouldn’t let someone come after her kids ever again.
Driving through the city streets, Beth was aware that none of it was familiar to her. She was so young when she left. It hadn’t occurred to her last time, when she visited Wendy Noakes.
But tonight, she could have been anywhere. It was as if she had never been there before. Her brain had blocked it out. The pain. The horror.
Her mind would wander now and then. She would think of Daisy. She hoped her daughter wasn’t afraid, unlikely as that was. Beth’s mood fluctuated between extreme anger, to desperate terror, and a plethora of emotions in between. She thought of Michael Noakes again and slammed her fist hard onto the steering wheel.
He had humiliated her, yes. That was one thing. In a funny way she could see his justification for that. But to take her family. Her children. That was a step too far.
Knowing that he had killed Zoe left no doubt in Beth’s mind that he would hurt them too. But she wouldn’t allow that to happen.
As she headed away from the city centre towards the outskirts, where the derelict hotel was situated, a sinking feeling consumed her.
The Marshall Hotel had burned down in the late seventies. Several guests had died in the fire, the Marshall family were billionaires and so had cut their losses, deciding not to reopen it. The back half, where the kitchens were located, was completely destroyed. This was where the blaze had started. Beth would never forget the first time Kieran Taylor had taken her to the hotel.
The day they killed the stray cat.
That was where the seed had been sown. When they had joked about killing her father. Of course, it had begun as a laugh. Beth had never imagined that they would actually do anything.
But Kieran Taylor was unhinged.
Childish banter had led to something far worse. Two sad, broken children, egging each other on. Beth wouldn’t let her thoughts go there. This was not the time for that.
She drove along what was little more than an overgrown grassy footpath. Her Range Rover bumped and toppled over uneven ground. And there it was, looming before her.
The imposing silhouette of the once opulent Marshall Hotel now reduced to a relic.
Suddenly it felt as if she had been there only yesterday. The two parts of Beth’s life came crashing together.
In the moonlight, the hotel had the same eerie quality she remembered. Even without Kieran’s ridiculous ghost stories she had found the place terrifying. Something about it; she could never put her finger on it, but it felt wrong.
Sheets of perished plastic, which used to cover windows and doorways, blew in the wind. Catching the moonlight sporadically, they looked like ghostly figures dancing in the breeze. Beth imagined they were the spirits of the dead guests, writhing in agony as they burned eternally.
She shivered.
Parking up, she surveyed the scene ahead of her. This was where it had all begun. The dark path her life would take. Beth shook her head, cursing. She had often wondered how differently things would have turned out if she had not visited the hotel with Kieran that first time. If she had only gone home to her mother, like she had wanted to.
But she didn’t. And nobody can change the past, as much as they might yearn to.
Beth had made her choices. All she could do was try to live the best life possible. And she had. But now it was all crumbling around her, like chalk from a weathered cliff. Much the same as the hotel she sat in front of, afraid to enter.
She slid the silver Stanley knife into her sock, the cold metal against her skin made her body tingle. Gripping the hammer tightly in her lap, she sat for a moment, looking at the derelict building. She scraped her hair back into a tight ponytail, securing it in place with an elastic band.
She was ready.
Climbing out of her car, she trudged through the waist-high grass towards the skeletal remains. Weeds tangled round her ankles, almost tripping her. Her foot sank into a bog-like patch of mud. She grimaced, shaking off the excess muck.
Reaching the perimeter, she raised her head, looking up at the roof. The place was in a far worse state than when she had last been here. Over thirty years had passed. But it still felt the same.
Beth was amazed at how the scene was opening up old wounds. Tearing scabs from long-healed scratches. Bringing back memories she had tried so hard to keep buried.
She eased herself around the wall with her free hand, edging around the wreck of the Marshall Hotel. Eventually she came to a way in. When she was a child, they had entered through an actual doorway where the chipboard covering had come loose. She blinked, remembering how Kieran had pushed the board and slipped through, out of sight. She had followed obligingly, as she always did. No comprehension of what danger may be lurking on the other side.
Now, an entire wall had collapsed, leaving a gaping space large enough for an adult to fit through easily.
With one final glance around her, Beth slipped through the gap, into the darkness.
57
The interior of the hotel was far from what Beth remembered; what she could see of it, at least. When she was last there, it had seemed much grander. Wooden panelling had still been visible. Traces of bookshelves, even some tattered old books. Now it was little more than a pile of rubble. Impossible to tell where each room had originally finished. Walls had tumbled. Ceilings had caved.
Over thirty years of the elements had taken their toll on the place.
A memory of Billy Noakes running away down a corridor ahead of her flashed into her mind’s eye. His pale-blond hair caught a beam of moonlight which shone through a large gap in the roof. His curls bounced around as he darted away into the darkness.
Billy, come back here! she remembered shouting after him, but he’d ignored her.
Had he been playing, or trying to escape?
Beth couldn’t remember.
Don’t, she thought. Just don’t. She wouldn’t allow those black thoughts to cloud her mind. What was done was done. She shook the image away and crept deeper into the belly of the building. Shafts of patchy white moonlight illuminated her path. It felt like a scene from some teen horror flick. And here she was, the stupid girl, heading straight towards the danger.
Now and then she would trip on some bricks. The stench of this place was horrendous. Damp. Mould. And dead things. But beneath the smell of decay, something else.
Something familiar. But Beth couldn’t place it.
She passed the remnants of a campfire. Discarded beer cans and a wine bottle lay strewn around. A used condom beside the charred remains. Obviously a popular hang-out for delinquents. Beth wondered sadly to herself how many girls had lost their virginity in this awful place. She wondered if things had been different, would she have done the same? Perhaps with Kieran?
She had been infatuated with him. Looked up to him. She had often been attracted to the wrong kind of men. Charlie was the first truly good man she had been with. That’s why she had stayed. Against her better judgement.
He was the reason she had broken all of her own rules.
The hotel was eerily quiet. Beth could hear her own breathing, her footsteps crunching across the dirty floor. She glanced around, making sure she wasn’t being followed. She considered texting the number, telling him she had arrived. But she had to imagine that for the time being, she had the element of surprise in her favour.
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Unless he had been watching. Waiting for her to arrive.
Mikey’s face flashed into her mind. Grinning his stupid boyish grin on the night they first met, at Chloe’s birthday drinks. Beth wished so much that he was standing in front of her right now, so she could smash him over the head with the hammer. She was surprised by the level of animosity that she felt. The violence. She didn’t simply want to stop him.
She wanted to kill him.
The knife concealed in her sock dug uncomfortably into her ankle, serving as a reassuring reminder that it was there.
She heard a cough close by. She stopped, holding her breath. Silence. She continued around a corner, and the space opened up. She recognised it. The ballroom. Or at least that’s what she had imagined it was when she was little.
This is where they had brought Billy.
She glanced across the floor. Standing in the doorway, she felt afraid to move forwards. Paralysed with fear and sorrow all rolled into one. Another cough, from the direction of the mezzanine.
‘Hello, is somebody there?’ Charlie’s hoarse voice called out from the darkness.
‘Charlie?’ Beth replied in a half whisper.
‘Beth?’
She ran towards the structure. As she grew nearer and her eyes adjusted, she could make out his shape, huddled on the ground. He was tied to one of the corner supports of the balcony. She crouched down in front of him, cradling his head in her hands. He winced.
‘Charlie, my God, are you okay?’
In the dim light, Beth could vaguely distinguish his face, crusted with blood, and bruised.
‘What has he done to you? Are the kids all right?’
‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. They’re in another room, I don’t know where, but if you call out Daisy will reply. Peter is… I think he’s… unconscious.’
Beth moved round behind Charlie. Dropping the hammer on the ground, she fumbled with the cord that was tied round his wrists. A shower of dust and loose stones fell down from above.